Is your IT department a barrier to development?

Posted on 05 August 2010

We often hear about how stretched the IT department is, many customers complain that the development and deployment of their mobile computing solution is held up because of its perceived low priority within their IT departments. In some cases they’ve been quoted years in answer to the question; “When could it be integrated”?

First let’s put this in context, any mobile solution will be of limited value unless it’s integrated with the legacy or host, back office system. Over recent years the integration at hardware level has become much easier. It wasn’t long ago that you needed to guess how many telephone lines and modems you would need to install to satisfy the need for 100 people to transmit data at any given time, without them receiving an engaged tone. Back then the focus was on batch data capture with relatively large files being transmitted each evening. All you need now is a decent broadband connection; something which we now take for granted and are frustrated by when not available.

At the software level however, integration is an entirely different matter…

Here at Codegate we’ve developed a suite of software application interfaces that simplify the connection to legacy systems. Various host systems, for example; Sage, SAP, BARN or Oracle output information to, and integrate data from our bespoke mobile solutions. This means involvement from the IT department is minimised. Of course they’ll want to check the validity of the suggested integration mechanisms and to see how other customers use them, but the result is a considerable time saving when compared to writing the interface from scratch.

But just how much time does this save?

One of our developments involved obtaining customer order information from an IBM AS400 host owned by a large consumer electronic device manufacturer, transmitting this to wireless hand held computers in the warehouse which directed the operators to pick the order. Each element of the picking process was verified by bar code and when completed, the details were forwarded to a hand held being used by drivers to capture serial numbers when delivering the products to the retail customer. On completing his deliveries, the driver returned to the warehouse and the data was transmitted through Codegate’s software, updating the AS400. This system required an analyst from their IT department for just 4 hours. In other words the solution was implemented without major involvement of the IT department and without queueing for their resource time. From order to implementation of the pilot took only four months, far quicker than the customer expected.

Is your IT department a barrier to getting your mobile solution implemented, let us know?